When We Met

My eyes followed her hand that pulled a pad from her slinky apron. Her waist was tiny. I bet I could have circled it with both my hands. I considered trying, but I wasn’t overly convinced she wouldn’t stab me with a steak knife. I brought my eyes back up slowly. I’m not going to lie. They might have lingered on her breasts for a moment before finding her face. I could tell my appraisal hadn’t gone u

I shifted in my seat, tugging on my jeans that were becoming uncomfortable at the moment. Using my coat to cover the evidence, I willed my mind to think of anything that did not involve the luscious blonde in front of me. It took a second to make my body respond to the images of wrinkly old people in bathing suits. It was a trick I’d learned when I was fourteen and my parents took me to Daytona Beach. It was the only way I could keep from sporting a constant hard-on from all the chicks in bikinis walking around. Trust me, that is not something you want your mother to see.

“I’ll take a Coke,” Collin answered. He looked at me like I was nuts.

“Me, too,” Chad piped in.

“Me three.” I could have kicked my own ass. It sounded fu

“Got it. Do you guys know what you want to eat, or do you need a few minutes?”

“I know what I want,” Chad said as he began to rattle off his order.

“I need a few minutes.” I interrupted him before he could finish, picking up a menu that I probably could have recited with my eyes closed.

“Bro, are you kidding? Since when do you not know what you want?”

I kicked him hard in the shin under the table.

“What the fuck, dude?”

Courtney cut her eyes toward me, eyeing me suspiciously before shrugging. “Okay, then, I’ll go get your drinks while you make up your mind,” she said, pulling her eyes away.

“Why the hell did you kick me? You always get a burger,” Chad demanded once she walked away, reaching a hand down to rub his shin where I’d kicked him.

“Sorry, man. I felt like something different.” What was I going to do, admit it was all a lame ploy, an excuse to have her come back to our table? Maybe I could also hang a bitch sign around my neck for good measure. I didn’t know why I cared so much. If I was just looking to get laid, I could get that by standing up and proclaiming that I was looking for company. This was something else. Maybe I was feeling nostalgic about a time when everything didn’t revolve around basketball, and Dad wasn’t constantly breathing down my neck. When Courtney and I had been friends, everything just seemed so much easier.

Chad looked at me skeptically but refrained from saying anything else.

“Hey, am I the only one who thought those guys were about ready to bawl when you drained four three-pointers in a row?” Collin crowed, changing the subject. That was Collin. He was the peacekeeper.

“Couldn’t have done it unless you pulled down all those boards,” I pointed out, sharing the glory of the game. “I actually felt bad for them once we went up twenty-five points.”

“Not me. They can go back home and maybe take up knitting jockstraps or something,” Collin added.

Chad and I laughed. Collin was ruthless on the court. It was what made him a great player. You had to be aggressive to make plays, and he could be a game changer when he wanted to.

We were still trading insults about the other school when Courtney returned with our drinks. Our voices had gotten loud, and several tables around us had joined in on the roast. I was in the middle of laughing at an inappropriately mean comment about the only balls they should be dribbling when my eyes met Courtney’s. Her animosity was hard to miss. It was clear she was pissed. Maybe she had turned into some religious nut that was easily offended by swearing and harmless razzing.

The laughter dried up in my throat. I tried smiling to let her know we were kidding. She, of course, didn’t return it. This chick was seriously hard-core immune to flirting. Her nickname should be the Brick Wall.

“Are you guys ready to order?” she asked impatiently, placing our cups on the table harder than necessary. Coke sloshed over, soaking the stack of napkins she had set down. “Oh, fuck me,” she muttered, wiping up the mess before it covered the entire table.

“Is that an invitation?” I said the words without giving conscious thought to them. It was like an instinct.

“No, thanks. There’s no telling what I would catch.”

Chad hollered as the rest of the guys erupted into laughter. “Shit. That’s harsh. You just got served, dude.”

Courtney ignored his comment and stood disdainfully, waiting for us to place our orders. It was as if one of our moms were standing in front of us.

Chad, Dave, and Collin cleared their throats and put in their orders, leaving me for last.

“I’ll take the half-court burger with extra cheese,” I ordered without opening the menu.

“Fries or tots?”

Chad gri

“Anything else?”

“How about your number?” I figured I might as well take the shot since she had already blasted me in front of everyone.

“Why?” For the first time, I had her undivided attention.

She didn’t say no, which was a small victory. I savored it for a second before answering, “Normal reasons—talking, for example, and so I can ask you out sometime.” I flashed my full-wattage smile, taking advantage of having her attention.

For a moment I thought I was making headway until she looked like she wanted to puke. Was the idea of dating me really that appalling?

“I don’t date jockstrap wearers.” She turned to leave before I lobbed back my response.

“Lucky for me, basketball players don’t wear jockstraps.”

She paused midstep but didn’t turn back to look at me.

“Bro, I’m going to fuck you up if you kick me again,” Chad threatened once she was out of earshot.

Collin snorted, clapping him on the back. “You wish. Dalton would wipe the floor with you. One time when we were all playing a game at the rec center, some dipshit thought he could keep pushing our man Dalton here. Dalton tolerated his shit for the first fifteen minutes or so, but then the dickhead knocked Dalton out of bounds with a cheap shot. My boy didn’t even hesitate. He clocked him so hard he was out for the count. It was classic, baby. Dalton is the fucking man.”

“What are you, his manager? Or maybe it’s something else. I didn’t know you swung from that tree. Do I need to leave you two alone?”

“Shit, I’d make you my bitch, fool. Believe that. Everyone wants a piece of the Collin Man,” Collin bragged, making a show of kissing his own biceps.

“Right. You and Tater Tots here are both shooting zero-for-two at the moment. I don’t need to kick Dalton’s ass, ’cause Courtney is doing it for me.”

“Fuck that,” I piped in. “I’m just getting started, Smalls. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be closing that shit soon enough.” It wasn’t meant to sound cocky, just confident based on my experience with the ladies.

chapter five

Courtney

I pushed through the swinging kitchen door and leaned against the wall, trying to clear my head. The dirty dishes slid off my tray, crashing to the floor. Mercifully they didn’t break. Dalton Thompson had just asked for my number. He had to be screwing with me. He’d never looked in my direction the whole time we were at Grant High together and now suddenly he was interested. I felt like I was being Punk’d.

“Wow, my princess. You break-a my dishes, you break-a my heart. What has my little tigress so upset?” Jimmy asked, drying his hands on his apron and slinging a fatherly arm across my shoulders. “Whose ass do I need to kick?”